Kangra District, Himachal Pradesh: The afternoon sun streamed through the small kitchen window as Mamta recalled the day that changed everything. At 52, her weathered hands trembled slightly as she prepared tea. 

Mamta, who goes by a single name, dropped out of school at 13 and had two sons, now 18 and 24, living in Draman, a village of 349, in Bhawarna tehsil, in Kangra district in western Himachal Pradesh. She dropped out of school at 13.

"I was just cooking dal for lunch," Mamta said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Nothing was wrong. There was no fight, no argument. Suddenly, I felt this terrible pain. He was hitting me with a wooden stick, again and again, right on my shoulder." 

A housewife, Mamta helps out on her husband’s agricultural land, where they grow seasonal crops such as wheat and maize. She narrated how her husband, a retired lance naik—a non-commissioned officer in the Indian Army—became her greatest threat.

The violence escalated ever since her husband had retired in 2023. Before retirement, he would visit the village only twice a year for a few days. The violence then, she said, had been limited by his absence.

In September 2024, while she was hanging clothes in the courtyard, he threw a steel bowl from the first floor, which struck Mamta’s head. 

"I got 12 stitches," she said, touching the faint scar near her hairline. "The neighbours rushed me to the hospital."

For the first time in her 30-year marriage, Mamta approached the panchayat and later the police.

Like in many rural areas, the police began with counselling. They visited the home several times, tried to talk to her husband, and calmed things down. But nothing changed. She said, “He just got angrier after they left.”

Yet, Mamta did not want her husband to go to jail. 

She said she originally did not want a divorce either, as she is financially dependent on him, has no independent income, and believed that at her age, she would not be able to start a new life. 

“I don’t want to leave my home,” she said. “I just want him to change.” 

But the violence continued until the first week of July 2025, when Mamta finally decided to leave and moved in with her brother and sister-in-law. 

According to her, she looked her husband in the eye “for the first time” and said, “If you raise your hand on me again, I won’t stay silent. I will go to the police and file a complaint. And this time, I will also file for divorce.”

Stories like Mamta’s are becoming more common in the state of Himachal, which has the third-lowest rate of domestic violence in the country, behind Lakshadweep and Goa, according to data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 2019-21, the latest available. 

Surge In Marital Violence

The state has experienced a surge in gender-based marital violence, with 8.3% of women aged 18-49 reporting physical or sexual violence from their spouses, in NFHS 2019-21 compared to 5.9% in NFHS 2015-16.

This rise in domestic violence in Himachal has taken place at the same time the national rate of marital physical or sexual violence has dropped from 29.9% to 28.4%.

The upward trend in the state coincides with an overall 8% surge in violent crimes across the state, with the NCRB report documenting 19,053 total incidents of crime, up from 18,833 the previous year. 

Nationally, a total of 445,256 crimes against women were registered during 2022, an increase of 4% over 2021 (428,278 cases), according to the report.

Perhaps most concerning is the disconnect between actual violence rates and formal complaints. 

According to a 2024 study, of 72,320 women aged 18–49 years, 17,765 women had faced intimate partner violence, but only 14.2% sought any help. 

Cases registered under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, have remained stable but inadequate: 446 cases in 2020, 507 in 2021, and 468 in 2022, the latest data available. 

Among the 1,551 crimes against women recorded by NCRB in 2022 in Himachal, domestic violence formed the majority, yet these numbers represent only a fraction of actual incidents.

Government data and a January 2024 Outlook report expose a geographical disparity in violence patterns across Himachal. Rural areas bear the heaviest burden, with 8.7% of women reporting spousal violence compared to 6% in urban centres. 

This rural concentration reflects broader national patterns where traditional power structures and limited support systems trap women in cycles of abuse.

Nationally, the rural-urban gap is even more extreme, with 75% of rural women experiencing sexual violence versus 24.9% in urban areas, and physical violence affecting 72.8% of rural women compared to 27.2% in urban centres.

A Generation Gap

Tripta, who goes by a single name and is a social worker with the NGO Jagori Rural, said there was a distinct generational gap in the ways that women responded to abuse. 

"Young women in their 20s and 30s are very different now," she said.

“They are well-educated, self-sufficient, and conscious of their rights,” said Tripta, who has worked with domestic violence victims in Himachal for more than 20 years. “They are quick to spot financial, mental, and physical abuse, and they don't think twice about taking action.”

Tripta added the younger generation no longer rely on their husbands, but many older women in rural Himachal were still dependent on their husbands. 

“Many women, mostly in their late 30s and 40s, believe they have nowhere else to turn,” she said. “They endure physical and sexual abuse for decades in silence.” 

Another social worker, Anita, who also goes by a single name and dealt with cases of domestic violence for more than 15 years, said, "Most women don’t come forward, not because they’re weak, but because they’re trapped.

She said this was particularly true for women in their late 30s and beyond. 

"They don’t know their rights, they have no financial independence, and they fear being shamed or blamed by their own families and communities,” said Anita. 

‘I Have No Words’

In addition to the physical violence that she suffered at the hands of her husband, there was a darker reality Mamta had never shared with anyone, not even her two sons, one in college and the other working in Haryana. 

"After he would beat me, when I was already hurt and afraid, he..." Her voice broke completely as she looked away. Mamta said the sexual violence began after her husband retired. 

She said her husband would lock her in their room for days at a time and take away her clothes so that she couldn’t step outside. “I had to beg him just to use the washroom,” Mamta said.

Her voice sank as she added, “Then he would say, because I am locked in the room with him, I must get physical with him in unnatural ways.”

Mamta said that he would not stop even when she cried or pleaded with him. “He would say I have no right to say no to him,” she said.

Mamta eventually filed a police complaint about the beatings, but her shame prevented her from speaking about the rest. “I know the beatings were wrong. “That’s why I complained to the police,” she said. “But this other thing. I didn’t even know what to call it.”

Mamta had never heard the term "marital rape". In her world, in her generation, in her rural community, there are no words for what she endured. 

Marital rape remains legal in India, as the law continues to exempt forced sex within marriage from the definition of rape, leaving countless women without legal recourse for one of the most intimate forms of violence.

At 52, after leaving her decades-long marriage, Mamta remains trapped by a complete absence of language, support, or recognition for the most intimate violence she suffered. 

“The beatings that I endured, I can speak about that to anyone; Police, Panchayat, or even my sons,” Mamta said. “But what happens beyond the closed doors, I have no words for that; neither can I communicate that to anyone.”

Breaking The Cycle

As she spoke, Jyoti Kumari held her three-year-old daughter close to her. At 28, she had already experienced years of systematic abuse and desertion, she said.

Kumari, who dropped out of school after class 8, currently lives in Andrar, a village of 563 people in Himachal’s Kangra district.

"My husband is a shepherd who goes to Ladakh for months at a time," Kumari said. "His homecoming felt like a storm; he would severely beat me, as though he needed to vent all of his resentment for being away.”

Kumari said she had thought that her husband would change after becoming a father. The birth of their daughter made things worse, as her husband started drinking. 

“After drinking, he would beat me in front of our child,” said Kumari. 

When their daughter was a year old, she decided to fight back. 

"I couldn't allow her to grow up believing that this was the typical appearance of families," said Kumari. “I took her and returned to my mother's house when she was one year old.”

Kumari took her first legal step in February 2022 when she approached the local police and registered a complaint about the abuse she was facing from her husband. The police initially responded by counselling her husband, but Kumari said the violence had already become too severe to ignore. 

In a culture that stigmatises leaving a marriage, the support her family gave her was invaluable. "Despite the fact that it embarrassed our family in the village, my parents stood by me," said Kumari. “They could see how their granddaughter and I were being affected by this marriage.”

As Jyoti had no stable income, she approached the District Legal Services Authority—established by state governments to provide free legal advice and representation to vulnerable families—for help and was assigned a legal aid lawyer. 

In August 2022, with her advocate’s support, she filed a maintenance case under section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code, seeking support for herself and her daughter.

The case dragged on for nearly two years. During court proceedings, Kumari’s mother would take care of her daughter.

In 2024, the Dharamshala district court ordered her husband to pay her Rs 3,000 every month as maintenance, providing her with a means to start rebuilding her life.

Kumari has also begun learning tailoring, determined to earn a livelihood and become self-sufficient, and is preparing for her next legal move: a divorce.

“I've tried everything, giving him chances, hoping he would change after becoming a father,” she said. “Nothing worked."

"I want my daughter to grow up knowing that women don't have to accept abandonment or violence," Kumari said, as she watched her child play. 

Finding Freedom

At 35, Kalpana Devi walked away from abuse.

Devi, who lives in Kangra city, married at 19. 

"The beatings started early in my marriage," she said, folding clothes with practised efficiency. She said her husband's violence increased when he drank.

"I had no stree dhan (all the movable and immovable property that a woman receives during her lifetime, especially at the time of her marriage) to fall back on, no savings of my own," said Devi. “When the abuse became unbearable, I did what many women do. I ran back to my parents."

Although her family, who were daily wage labourers in Delhi, provided her refuge when she left her husband in 2018, Devi, like many other women in her situation, did not initially file an FIR, as she was unaware of her legal rights and options.

"For five years, I lived in this strange limbo," she said, as she ironed a new suit. “Technically married but completely separated. My husband never called, never asked about me. It was like I had simply disappeared from his life." 

Devi was later introduced to the NGO Jagori Rural by her friend. “I first became aware of divorce, legal separation, and the possibility of formally ending this marriage at that point,” said Devi. 

With their support, Devi, in December 2021, filed a domestic violence complaint at the women’s police station in Kangra to document the abuse, following which, in 2022, she filed for divorce. 

Since her husband did not contest it, the court granted a mutual divorce the same year, marking the end of a marriage that had effectively ended years earlier. 

"Getting that legal document felt like getting my life back," said Devi. “I wasn't living in limbo anymore. I was officially free to build whatever future I wanted." 

Today, Devi works at a clothing shop and has found a peace that once seemed impossible. "I wake up every morning without fear,” she said, “without wondering what mood someone else will be in, without walking in fear." 

She said her days were her own now, filled with work she enjoyed, customers who respected her, and evenings spent in quiet contentment. 

"Now, I can focus completely on building the life I want,” said Devi.

(Mansi Rathee is a Delhi-based lawyer and journalist who covers issues related to human rights, women's empowerment, and gender, and Amir Bin Rafi is a Kashmir-based journalist who has reported on politics, art & culture, the environment, and human rights.)

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